By the end of the year, Memphis and New Orleans were occupied, and Vicksburg was the Confederates' only foothold on the Mississippi River. The Confederates tried and failed to push his army back at the battle of Shiloh. Meanwhile, in the west, a general named Ulysses Grant was steadily advancing southward, cutting through most of Tennessee. However, Lee was forced to retreat his army back to Virginia. Even though the Union had twice as many troops, McClellan was unable to deliver a decisive victory in the bloodiest day of the Civil War. McClellan met Lee at Antietam on September 17. Lee decided to mount an invasion of Maryland. While McClellan was retreating back to the coast and sailing his army up the Chesapeake to Washington, Robert E. McClellan became known as cautious to his own detriment. McClellan got his army within a few miles of Richmond, but was defeated in battle by Robert E. This even though the city was a mere 100 miles from Washington via the overland route. He conceived of a bizarre plan to land it amphibiously on the Virginia shore and to march on Richmond from the east. The Union put George McClellan in charge of the main army. In the meantime the Union had better luck advancing down the Mississippi River, and in securing the border states of Missouri and Kentucky. The two armies met and shot at each other until the Union troops turned and fled. The Confederates raised an army and encamped it halfway between the two cities. The Union raised an army in Washington and marched it towards Richmond. 1861: The first battlesīoth sides tried the simplest strategy first. It was probably of little consolation to the 620,000 troops who died, but they were participating in campaigns that aficionados marvel at to this day. The type of battles ranged from the shock attacks at Chancellorsville to the long sieges and trench warfare of Vicksburg and Petersburg. Artillery, cavalry, and naval forces all played a crucial role. The largest armies consisted of over 100,000 men. Rifles were much more accurate and faster loading than they had been in the age of Napoleon. The Civil War is widely considered to be a military tactician's dream. The date was April 12, 1861.īoth countries began raising armies in haste after this engagement. The Civil War began with a confederate takeover of Fort Sumter, which was in South Carolina but still manned by US troops. Other states in the south soon followed, and they called themselves the Confederate States of America. South Carolina was the first state to do so on December 20, 1860. Several states had threatened to secede if he won, and they soon began carrying out that threat. When Abraham Lincoln won the election of 1860, southern indignation was immediate. Without the specter of abolition haunting the south, none of the other "causes" would have been nearly important enough to warrant succession. The southern states seceded specifically to defend this institution. There are many other "causes" of the Civil War mentioned beyond that of slavery, but the main cause of the Civil War was slavery.
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